


What's Reality With All These Questions?

by AngelWithAStory



Series: Author’s Favourites [16]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, flowers as a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 23:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12095358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelWithAStory/pseuds/AngelWithAStory
Summary: Hanahaki Disease:A condition in which flowers begin to grow in the lungs and throat when a person experiences unrequited love or affection to another person. Surgery can remove the flowers, but will also remove the feelings of affection. If left untreated, the flowers grow to the point where the diseased person struggles to breathe, which can lead to eventual death.





	What's Reality With All These Questions?

**Author's Note:**

> not my first fanfic by far, but my first for aftg <3 I really wouldn't have even written this nevermind posted it if one of my friends hadn't bugged me about it, but alas, here we are :D
> 
> title is from Mansion by NF because my friend had it in one of her aftg playlists and it _ruined_ me (it's [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/lgbtnotts/playlist/2P0KT3BaIW2lwyZ7YUTIgu) btw
> 
> warnings for blood and brief mention of vomit towards the end

Out of all the dangers a person could face, flowers should never have ranked as high as they did. No one ever could have expected it when the first few cases popped up.

People coughing until they collapsed as small, delicate petals spilled onto the harsh concrete beneath them. Small children being rushed to the ER, confused at how this tiny bud that had fallen out of their mouths at school could possibly be dangerous. Teenagers leaving bloodied roses, peonies, sunflowers, bluebells, along side their notes confessing everything.

No one ever could have thought that such a simple, well documented emotion such as _love_ could have caused so many deaths.

No one expected as many people to suffer.

Neil never expected to be affected.

***

It wasn’t like he was clueless - but if there ever was a word to describe it - Neil knew about the disease. Everywhere had small town traditions of what to do with the petals (or the fully formed flowers, if you let it get that far), and it felt like every other week, there was someone on the news either claiming to have cured it for good, or someone famous succumbing to the flowers and reporters scrabbling to find for who the flowers bloomed.

Neil knew that emotions were dangerous and he’d had the lesson beaten into him the hard way. Sometimes, after running into a pair of pretty eyes and a warm laugh and maybe a flirty smile, Neil would wake up in a cold sweat. He would swipe away the imaginary petals and imagine he could taste the iron tang of blood in his mouth.

It would take three rounds of brushing his teeth and countless minutes staring at his face (never his own face, always someone else’s, always someone plain and unrecognisable) before his heart would stop hammering in his chest and he could swallow without tasting blood on his tongue.

No, Neil knew full well just how dangerous love could be, especially when it wasn’t returned.

(Neil always felt guilt twist in his gut every time he thought about that girl with the cheap lipstick and how she hastily wiped away the small trickle of blood from the side of her mouth after she kissed him. Then again, it was her fault for feeling.)

As far as Neil was concerned, love was out-of-bounds. A place he could never step foot and a place he could never come back from.

Best to stay away, in the first place.

*** 

It didn’t happen straight away.

No one ever was fine one day then on their knees coughing up bloodied gerberas the next. Love was a much quieter killer than most people gave it credit for.

It always started off slowly; a stray thought, a warm smile, a handwritten note with a smiley face drawn in the corner.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it was a ringtone. A song about runaways as Andrew and sat sat on a bench in an empty changing room and faced each other. It wasn’t the first time someone had given a shit about Neil and his well-being (a few months with the Foxes had leant itself to more genuine affection that Neil had ever received in his entire life) but something felt different.

The water from the shower was starting to run cold but Neil was too exhausted to really care. Body heat was slowly being leached out from the forearm he had braced against the tiles of the shower, and that did nothing to help his mood. His muscles ached and all he wanted was to crawl onto any vaguely horizontal surface and never move again.

But still, he thought back to that ringtone. That fucking song that felt like a punch to the chest. Andrew’s finger under his chin. The quiet click of the phones closing.

Neil coughed into his hand.

Probably something he caught from one of the other students, at least. Only made sense, colds and illnesses were bound to spread when there were so many bodies all packed into one place. Nothi-

Neil stared down at his hand.

A small, pale pink petal rested in the dip of his palm. As still as if it had been placed there. Drips of blood surrounded it, already diluting themselves against his skin.

Wordlessly, Neil tipped his hand.

He watched the petal drift down to the ground. He watched as the water took it over to the drain and dragged it beneath.

The shower shut off but Neil didn’t move, couldn’t move, _wouldn’t_ move. He spat on the shower floor.

Blood stared back at him from the floor.

Neil barely bothered to dry off before he shoved his fresh clothes back on. It took all his composure to keep his face neutral as he reentered the locker rooms.

It took him seven rounds of brushing his teeth before he stopped tasting blood in his mouth.

***

People use to say that denial kept the growth subdued. Never erased it, only surgery could do that, but eased it nonetheless. Some people claimed that it took years for the disease to even start hurting them due to the strength of their denial.

It was harder to deny when you were staring at the bloodied petals in the kitchen sink the next morning.

All hope that it had been some terrible, exy-induced nightmare fizzed away right then and there. Neil’s hands ached with how tightly he gripped the sink. He could feel a small trickle of blood begin to edge down his chin.

He’d been so _careful_.

All those names, all those cities, never leaving when people were looking, never staying too long in one place. All those faces that disappeared into the crowd. All those good wills exploited just to keep him alive just _one more day_. All those late night buses and sleeping rough.

And all it had taken was a few minutes with a man who saw through every last false face he could have thrown up. One man’s relentless hope and Neil had thrown it all to the wind. Nine strangers - now eight - that gave a damn when they really shouldn’t have and suddenly Neil had a goal in sight. A set deadline, and he knew he was going to live every moment up until his time ran out.

All these delusions and it took a single petal for it all to come crashing down.

The phone in his pocket felt heavy and Neil almost wanted to smash it against the wall, pack up his bags and run.

Almost.

***

Seeking out help was out of the question, and always had been. Even Abby wasn’t an option.

Neil knew that he would suffer this alone, regardless of how much the others tried to push him to be more open about his pain, or how much they chastised him for ignoring his pain and brushing it aside with a simple-

“I’m fine.” Neil muttered, pointedly ignoring the look Allison and Nicky shared over his shoulder.

He wiped the small blood spot away on his black suit and stared up at Blackwell University. The only saving grace he could think of was that the coughing fits were few and far between. Never anything more than a drop or two of blood and a few, soft and budding petals. Nothing to worry about just yet.

***

The first time it hurt was the night after the Christmas banquet, the night he dreamt of death and blood. Some of it, his own. Some of it, his friends.

( _How long had the Foxes been allowed to use that label? How had they stopped being just teammates that Neil could ditch if he needed to? Since when had Neil put their lives above his own? Since when had he stopped minding?_ )

A cough roused him from his sleep and Neil dragged himself out of his bed as quietly as he could when his lungs wanted to escape his chest. Matt shifted in his sleep as Neil’s barefoot touched the ground. He held his breath. Only when everything was still again, did Neil pad over to the bathroom.

It was flimsy privacy, but it was enough as Neil sank to his knees and let the coughs come. Let them wrack his shoulders and squeeze his lungs. He braced himself against the floor and gripped his chest with the other arm.

Neil knew pain.

Neil knew more pain than anyone his age had any right to know, and more importantly, Neil knew how to inflict just as much pain as he could take. Neil knew with chilling certainty that he could endure much more than everything that had been inflicted upon him, and he had the scars to prove it.

But this…

Blood dripped from Neil’s mouth onto the floor. Much more than ever before. (Enough to linger and haunt Neil long after the fact). His knees were starting to hurt, but Neil was unmoving. Stuck in place. Paralysed.

Right there, on the bathroom floor, amidst the sticky pool of blood, sat a perfectly formed head of a flower.

The first thought to flit through Neil’s head was that he recognised the type of flower. ( _Peony. The kind his mother hated_.)

The second was that the colour had changed. ( _All the petals had been pale, delicate, see-through. The flower was darker, richer, more full of life, even when it lay there on the floor as it slowly died_.)

The third thought was dedicated to how much pain one heart could hold.

Physical pain was easy.

Physical pain was cuts and bruises and stitches and raw vodka to forget. Physical pain meant staying alive and moving forwards, it meant that the nerves hadn’t died yet, it meant that there was still some life left to leave.

This pain in Neil’s chest was different.

 _This_ pain… This pain felt like he was already dying.

***

The Ravens never knew. Neil made sure the petals and the flowers were never found. He made sure that he kept his emotions locked down and buried deep enough that he could grow numb. Become the Neil he was before the Foxes ever glanced at his file.

Jean knew, of course he did, he helped burn the peonies after all. Jean knew, he helped clean away the blood, framing it as a chore to clean blood out of bed sheets. It was a small, insignificant act of kindness. But it was there, nonetheless.

Neither of them talked about the flowers. Neither of them mentioned that with each passing day, Neil’s breathing grew just a tiny bit more laboured. Neither mentioned that the flowers were getting bigger, blooming more, bring more blood with them. No one wanted to notice the elephant in the room that was slowly suffocating them.

Neil repaid the kindness by never bringing up how Jean discretely coughed behind his hand whenever the Foxes were mentioned (which was rarely, if ever), or how that look in his eye when he caught Neil coughing up blood was more sympathetic than condescending.

Neil pretended that he didn’t see the scars around Jean’s neck that matched several of the other Raven’s too. He pretended that he didn’t notice how some of the Raven’s looked at each other and how they had matching scars that disappeared beneath the collar of their uniforms.

***

When Neil woke up in that airport, he tasted blood in his mouth and he could feel a familiar texture sitting on his tongue. Even in his delusional, disoriented state, some part of Neil that he had buried deep and locked away stirred with relief.

The flowers had survived.

Now he had to.

***

Matt was the first Fox to notice. How could he not? They shared a living space, and ever since Neil’s stunt of sacrificing his body and his wellbeing to keep the Ravens at bay, the upperclassmen (along with Nicky and Kevin) weren’t keen to have Neil out of their sights.

It was Matt who found Neil in the middle of the night, coughing his guts up in their shared bathroom. It was a miracle that Matt was the only one who heard.

Neil was slumped against the toilet bowl and for a moment, Matt almost turned to either grab his phone and call Abby, or grab someone else who could help a vomiting Neil. That moment passed, and Matt saw the blood on the toilet and trailing out of Neil’s mouth.

Something changed in Matt’s posture (Understanding? Sympathy? _…pity?_ ) and he grabbed a glass from one of the shelves. He filled it with cold water from the tap before he knelt down beside Neil. Matt’s hands were gentle as he wiped the sweat and blood off Neil’s face, gently encouraging him to take sips of water.

Neil coughed - just once, just slightly - and Matt watched as the lonely petal landed on the ground between them.

An eternity in a second passed between them.

Slowly, Matt picked up the petal and dropped it into the toilet bowl. He tried not to look, but even then, he could see just how many flower heads there were. He flinched, without really meaning to.

“Fuck, Neil,” Matt said softly, leaning over and flushing it all away, “how’d you let it get to this?”

“...’m-”

“If you try and tell me that you’re fine, I’m going to personally carry you to the emergency room, and then you’ll have to deal with Kevin and Wymack calling you an idiot.” Matt said. His tone was mostly teasing, but Neil had no doubt of the threat hidden away.

Neil’s shoulders shook with a cough that wasn’t powerful enough to bring anything with it, but still his chest ached. He realised that he was clutching the material of his shirt tightly. Some part of Neil’s brain imagined what his lungs looked like now as the flowers grew out of his tissue. Would it be beautiful, in a way only his father could really appreciate? Would it be tragic, seeing how it was the one emotion he vowed to never feel that was slowly destroying him?

Matt’s arm curled around Neil’s shoulders in a rare display of vulnerability on both their parts. Neil was still trying to get over the vertigo of having people actually _care_. Of having people that wanted to see him happy and healthy and that would go out of their way to make that happen. After a lifetime of being alone and emotionless, the change was… not wholly unwelcome.

(With any luck, they would both never mention this again come the morning, but for now…)

Neil let his head rest against Matt’s shoulder. Something on his face must have changed, because Matt frowned.

“What?” Matt asked.

“You’ve had them removed.” Was all Neil could say through his aching throat. Matt nudged the glass of water; a silent order to keep drinking it. Neil complied.

“Yeah, when I was younger. It was stupid, and I shouldn’t have let it get that far but… I don’t regret it, at least. They just… weren’t meant for me.” Matt said slowly. One of his hands absently traced the surgical scar. It looked even more faded than the track marks on his arms.

“And Dan is?”

“Hell yeah.” A small grin grew on Matt’s face and suddenly Neil’s chest ached.

It ached for two reasons. It ached because he was so happy that these two people had found each other and that they didn’t have to feel this pain any more. He ached because he knew, one way or another, that Neil probably wouldn’t live long enough to be able to say the same.

***

The car key bit grooves into Neil’s palm. Cigarette smoke curled between them and Neil couldn’t breathe, but in a good way.

“ _No one asked you_.”

Andrew’s palms were hot against Neil’s skin, and that was just fine. The world shrank to a pinpoint and that was the singularity; that split second in time before the collision.

Neil felt something in his chest bloom - something that felt dangerously close to the L word that had brought him nothing but pain but that he never could bring himself to mind - and then they were kissing.

There had been a pressure in his chest. Something that had been added to little by little, constantly, relentlessly. Something that shortened his breath and quickened his heart rate every time he looked at Andrew. In that instant, the moment that it had all become _real_ , Neil felt the pressure ease. Like a vice had been lifted, and Neil couldn’t help how weak he felt in that moment.

All the air left Neil’s lungs in an instant as he sighed against Andrew’s lips. His chest heaved as he let the kiss fall into a rhythm.

All too soon, Andrew was pulling back and looking Neil in the eye. Slowly, Andrew reached up and pulled something out of his mouth. He didn’t grimace, but his lip twisted like he was thinking about it. Carefully, Andrew dragged his thumb over Neil’s lower lip and Neil tried to remember when something had become stuck to his lip.

Almost dismissively, Andrew threw the two peony petals off to the side. Neil’s eyes followed them, his chest still heaving as his lungs tried to remember how to breath properly. He felt that small ember of hope grow to an inferno in the pit of his stomach.

Andrew turned his head back to face him and this time Neil was the one to move forwards, kissing Andrew like his life depended on it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ dreamer-of-thieves ](https://dreamer-of-thieves.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to swing by <3
> 
>  
> 
> ~~also I looked up flower language and Peonies mean 'gay life' but really I just picked them bc I had a load of fake peonies around the house and felt inspired~~


End file.
